


Sacrificing (What You Never Had To Begin With)

by GoatSoup



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:10:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoatSoup/pseuds/GoatSoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a little sad and sorta "why are you doing this to me?" but you guys, it happened and I don't know how to stop it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Sacrificing (What You Never Had To Begin With)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little sad and sorta "why are you doing this to me?" but you guys, it happened and I don't know how to stop it.

He'd really done it this time. He'd gone and messed everything up. Choosing a pipe dream over friends...family, what was he thinking? 

But that didn't matter now. Neither did how he felt about the situation, how it affected him, how it hurt him. The choice had simply been ripped from him. Quite viciously too, might he add.

He had been so happy, so goddamn excited. He'd be a father again. A husband. But more importantly, his babies would grow up in a solid, stable home. Much like the home he'd shared with two too-gorgeous-for-their-own-good sisters and a troublemaking brother. A mother with an endless supply of patience and love. A father who was every bit as soft as he was sturdy.  
The family dinners, the holiday celebrations, the weddings, graduation and hell, even the reunions weren't that bad. Baseball in the summers and hockey in the winters. That's what family was. Loud noise and constantly buzzing energy. 

That's what he'd come to cherish. What he'd sworn to protect. 

So when Rachel sorta shrugged a shoulder and said "oopsie, my bad", she hadn't just broken the remainder of a man with too many crosses to bear already; she'd shattered him. 

And what did she care anyway? She'd never understood the importance of family, what with being an only child who spent more time at boarding school than she had spent getting to know her parents. He remembers feeling so bad for her at her very first Williams Annual Gathering. Yes, with capital letters because it was just that big. Rachel had looked so far out of her comfort zone, Danny had been seriously impressed she had lasted the whole week swapping embarrassing tales and creating new ones after the kids had gone to sleep and the booze had come out of God only knows where. 

So impressed, in fact, that he'd taken her down to his 'special spot' and shown her just how much he appreciated strong women. 

Now here he was; at Honolulu International Airport and it felt so much like that very first time with the wall of suffocating heat and those damned leis. Even the cheery "Aloha!" written on the welcome sign seemed to mock his poor decision making skills. Yup, very much like the beginning. 

Except this time he had friends to return to; family. Ohana. And one member of that very same ohana was making his way towards a jet-lagged, caffeine-craving, not-enough-leg-room having Danny with long, purposeful strides. 

Danny had always been fascinated by that laser-sharp focus and that intense energy. Had often wondered what it'd be like to have it all directed at him. And now that he knew what it was like, knew how he liked it a lot, he knew this couldn't go on. Because Danny wasn't stupid, okay, not entirely. He knew he and Steve and been two-stepping and swaying toward something since day one, and he wasn't exactly fooling anyone by pretending it wasn't there.

He'd known, okay okay, suspected that if he and Steve did this; if they executed that final step-twirl-dip, then they wouldn't be able to take it back. Not ever.

So he about-faced and hailed a cab instead. How he'd gotten a taxi that quickly, he'd never know but he wasn't about to question good luck lest he jinx himself, end up with no ride as well as a sudden Hawaiian downpour. 

When the cab driver had asked where he wanted to go, he hadn't given the address of the quaint little bungalow that Kamekona's third cousin's girlfriend had just vacated. The one that had been practically given to him for nothing, the deal was so good. 

He opted instead for a seedy little motel. One where you didn't have to make small talk with the neighbours and nobody bothered to ask questions. One where he wouldn't be known. 

He got absolutely smashed that first night back. Switched off his phone and emptied bottle after bottle, like he was looking for the golden prize in a cereal box. 

Nobody had disturbed him that night, but he wasn't stupid he knew his team...his old team, had tracked him down and were probably just letting him "settle in" or stew in his misery or what the fuck ever. He knew it the same way he knew Kono wanted to drag him out for a night of hard drinking to forget their troubles disguised as a welcome home bash; the same way he knew Steve just wanted a nice team night out on his private stretch of beach; the same way he knew Chin had vetoed both of those ideas and had held steadfast in the face of both Kono and Steve's pouts-turned-indignant anger. 

Chin understood, okay, he was a solid guy. Not that Steve or Kono weren't...not that Kono was a guy because woah that really messed him up. 

Maybe thinking after downing half the hard liquor of the nearby 7/11 wasn't such a great idea. 

Not that waking up the next morning with the mother of all hangovers had been such a fantastic idea either, but hey whatever his Monkey was off touring the Galápagos Islands with Rachel and Step-Stan for the remainder of summer break. Step-Stan's way of buying back Gracie's love after almost having her mommy and daddy back together, no doubt, so he didn't have that to worry about. 

In fact, he had very little to worry about. He had a place to stay, people were leaving him the hell alone and he'd landed himself a sweet gig. Okay, maybe being the new captain of S.W.A.T hadn't been his dream job, like ever, but fucking up everything hadn't been part of his New Year's resolutions either, so whatever.

He was a new man, now. The old Danny worried all the time; this new one would only worry about his daughter and his new job. Nothing else mattered anymore. 

Weeks he spent dodging his old team. For weeks, he'd arrange to have plans with the guys - and gal, on his new team so that he already had an excuse lined up for when Steve inexorably asked.

The only time he wasn't out drinking or having a good time was when he was on the job or with his precious daughter. The same daughter who had waxed poetic about everything between all the places she'd visited to how absolutely delighted she was to be included in the decorating of the baby's room. 

Of course she'd sporadically asked her father about her Hawaiian family. Why weren't they around? Were they not their friends anymore? Did she do something wrong? 

The ache in Danny's chest at the whispered words and the forlorn look on his little girl's face would never ease up. He had done that, he was to blame for tearing up his Monkey's life. 

That, more than anything, convinced Danny of how much he needed this punishment. He was a fair guy after all. He always upheld the law, he wasn't about to let things slide just because he felt sorry for himself. Cop or not, he was still subject to the law. And the law said he had a sentence to carry out.

**Author's Note:**

> More chapters? Leave it? Let me know, por favor.


End file.
